[CentOS-promo] Some thougts about the ToDo List

[Dag Wieers]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2008, wonderer wrote:

> Dag Wieers schrieb:
>> On Mon, 16 Jun 2008, wonderer wrote:
>> 
>>> I read over the ToDo List and have some points to mention and hope its ok:
>> 
>> Certainly, I made that list to encourage anyone to help out. So I guess you 
>> were my target audience :)
>> 
>> 
>>> The following tasks needs one or more owners:
>>>
>>>   * Create appealing screenshots for the website, articles or events
>>> 
>>> additional: take pictures from events...
>> 
>> Right, we have pictures of events taken, but none of them have been put 
>> online in a structured manner :) So where do we want to put those ?
> A Gallery within the wiki, if this are not to many pictures they can put in 
> directly, etc.
>> 
>> Is the wiki a good place to put a few photo's of every event ?
> For the first shot, yes! Then we can see if there is a need for a more and 
> more structured Picture Archive.
> My experiences with other OpenSource Projects told me there will be up to 3 
> or maybe 5 Images per Event that fit in an "Online Gallery of the Event"...
> But as you say: if nobody do it, it would not be done ;-)

We need to mail all the people involved in previous events that may have 
pictures.

Also, it would be nice if we could make a wiki-template with some basic 
information, a photo, responsibilities, etc, and encourage every Wiki 
contributor to provide that information. And then have some sort of Team 
or Community page that lists all of them including the picture.

It would bring some human touch into the wiki. People sometimes forget 
this is made by inviduals like themself.


>>>   * Feed information to journalist as an incentive to write a CentOS 
>>> article
>>> 
>>> That could be very dangerous if it is not planned good enough...
>> 
>> Not sure what you mean with dangerous. As long as we do not want to spin 
>> anything I do not think we have to fear. As long as we give proper 
>> information to when CentOS is good, and in what situations CentOS is not 
>> suitable we at least educate people.
>
> No, not to fear, but if person a says to the journalist "CentOS 5.3 will come 
> on the 4th, july 2008" and person b tells another journalist "CentOS 5.3. 
> will come on 13th, August 2008" this can be worse...

Of course, but it depends on the subject. The other extreme is that you 
want every communication to be monitored by some people in charge who are 
too busy with more important matters and therefor *nothing* is done...


> - who may act in the name of CentOS?
> - are there an official promo department or does this work over the 
> community?
> - who is responsible if some press stuff came in?
> - who are the contact persons?

I guess these questions need to go to a meeting as well.


>> I think we should do education more than promotion. Most people have no 
>> clue what Enterprise Linux is and why they should pay attention to it.
>>
> Thats the other part:
> some ideas on articles or better HowTos:
> - wich Enterprise Linux should I choose  - why, how?! (HowTo and Presentation 
> for Event)
> - how to use CentOS for Business (Presentation for Events)
> - how to build a CentOS Intranet (HowTo)
> - what do I need for my personal CentOS Desktop?
> - any other ideas?

- how to build a media-center/voip/home automation

So many other interesting things that first need a knowledgable presenter 
and only secondly a good presentation :)


>>>   * Contact magazines for CentOS related articles or include CentOS media
>>> 
>>> Therefore CentOS should have ready made press kit (could work out 
>>> something).
>> 
>> Yes, we need a press-kit.
>> 
> Ok, I will work a draft version out, ok?! :-)
> Therefore I need maybe some more infos about CentOS itself. Who can I 
> "interview" about that?

Depends on what information you need. Why not ask the questions here and 
get the responsible people involved ?


>>>   * Contact publishers (of Fedora/RHEL books) to include CentOS on cover, 
>>> in print or as media
>>> 
>>> additional: contact Writers and ask to work out the CentOS related parts.
>> 
>> Right, go over the current RHEL and Fedora books and make sure we can 
>> improve the part about CentOS.
> Additional question: Do we have a ready made VMWare Image elsewhere online? 
> If not shall we build some and put it on VMWare?

VMware has a repository of images, I guess it belongs there. The point is, 
what is the image used for. All use-cases would have their own image.


>>>   * Sell and ship branded goods on the website and at events (stickers, 
>>> mugs, posters, media)
>>> 
>>> idea: build up a little spreadshirt shop (see 
>>> http://www.spreadshirt.com/us/US/T-Shirt/Spreadshirt-1342/ ) and look how 
>>> it goes. Selfmade shops  are expensive in  costs and time to administer 
>>> it...
>> 
>> I think we are blocked in this area as well. There have been meetings where 
>> this as popped up but none of them really were decisive. As long as we do 
>> not have a good plan about what we are using money for, I do not think we 
>> should be collecting money at all.
> Hmm, may I ask how CentOS supports People on events? Travel and Accomondation 
> costs, etc. ?!

On a voluntary basis. We have no money and I do not think we need to spend 
money on travel and accomodation. We have some income thanks to the 
donations (in return for media) but we should not depend on it too much. I 
think we now have 300 Euros, to be honest I did not look into the 
box after LinuxTag.

On some occasions we do pay for other expenses and the social event for 
people that volunteer.


> I knew several Europe wide Events where I can build up booth and talks, but 
> that needs some funding...

We are an Open Source project, if we cannot have a booth for free I do not 
think we should have a booth at all. If companies want to sponsor, I am 
not sure if we should use the money for events. If we have plenty we could 
reconsider, but at this point in time we should be more concerned about 
getting somewhat more money (by selling premium CDs and other gadgets, 
advertising space, what not) than looking to spend it.


>>>   * Create and maintain pages about how to install CentOS on your laptop
>>> 
>>> additional: Install CentOS under VMWare.
>> 
>> Yes, both are probably not really part of the promo SIG but I considered it 
>> important :) I started it, but it is not as successful as it could be. 
>> Maybe new additions to the Laptop page could make it to CWN as well to 
>> drive that a bit too ? :)
>
> Yes :-)
>
> Ok, I see a bit clearer. So my thought is (I hope I'm right about that) that 
> there are several parts to deal with (I did'nt think that my little question 
> will make such waves..)
> - Artwork SIG: make some more Pics like http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/centos/
> -> Question: can we move these banners over to CentOS (wiki)?

We should definitely ask him. On the other hand, there was some negative 
criticism that this is NOT the CentOS logo and therefor should NOT be 
used.

The problem in our community is this: Since we have no real voting 
mechanism, a negative voice often blocks a proposal while a positive voice 
may not be heard.

As long as we have no rules for decision-making, there is no 
decision-making...


> - Promotion: make an updated ToDo List with prioritys and people who can work 
> on it

Go ahead.


> - work on presentations and promo stuff

We are doing that everytime there is a need for it. We could use more 
people doing more presentations and adding more content.


> - presskit (myself, its ok with you all...?)

Sure.


> - Flyers, Posters

We need people that want to help with the Artwork SIG. That one is dead 
for some time now. Also, a better planning in between events would help 
get better promotional material in time for events.

We often want to do a lot, but because we are all volunteers our time is 
limited. We have been doing a good job until now, but we definitely could 
do better in the future. If you look at the progress we made, I think 
LinuxTag 2008 shows how we improved, both with the booth as well with 
presentations.


> Are there any "Projects" for / with CentOS we can promote more? any Cluster 
> or school project or so?

As the promotional team we should encourage people to set up projects and 
report back about it. A cluster-related SIG or a school-related SIG would 
be nice, but it would also require a lot of resources/volunteers to be 
competitive in those areas.

-- 
--   dag wieers,  dag at centos.org,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]